Alas, no. Our poor birthday boy spent his (and Daddy’s) big day battling a respiratory infection.

Rilla attempts to muster up some birthday excitement, but Wonderboy isn’t buying.

Ah well, it was a snuggly birthday instead of an energetic one. "Hey kid, what do you want for your birthday?" "Antibiotics!"

Our big ole three-year-old is doing much better today. And our 38-year-old is fabulous.

Took me a month, but I finally got our trip photos off the cameraphone and onto Flickr. They aren’t very good pictures—most of them were taken through the van window—but there they are. Some of them are out of order, and I’m still working on captions for them. It’s a work in progress, like pretty much everything in my life right now.

(By the way, in case you missed it, Alice live-blogged the trip with me over in the Cottage.)

Yesterday afternoon I sat down on the floor to change the baby. As I lingered there, playing with her, Wonderboy came up behind me and leaned against me for a little while. He loves to supervise my baby-tickling. Then he began—oh, it was so sweet!—to gently stroke my hair. For several minutes I sat there enjoying the soft touch of his hand on the back of my head. He was chuckling softly, and I was just melting.

Then he touched my arm, and his fingers were slimy. Startled, I turned to look at him and there he stood with a big happy grin, one hand glistening with goo—and an open jar of Vaseline in the other.

My hair is very shiny today.

The thing about moving is that when you get there, you’re busy for weeks. It isn’t like a vacation, where you come home on Sunday, and you spend Monday doing eight loads of laundry and a massive grocery shopping, and then you’re pretty much caught up and can get down to the serious business of forcing all your friends to ooh and ah over your photos.

With a household move, you have So Much Work to do when you get there. Who has time for photo-sharing and storytelling? And yet, there are all those stories from the big adventure of Getting There, all those landmarks you passed and wanted to write about so you’ll remember them forever.

We’ve been here three weeks now. That seems hardly the blink of an eye, and yet in the eyes of the DMV I’m already in penalty territory for not having registered the car. I did try, yesterday. After two hours of waiting in line and wrestling with papers, I left with no car registration and a temporary driver’s license which has my name spelled wrong. Sigh. I’ll try again next week. Dear DMV, Thank you for providing my five children with an important life lesson. I call it, "Red Tape is Like a Spider’s Web and We Are Hapless Flies." Signed, Merlissa.

Three weeks. We’re mostly unpacked, the girls are already immersed in ballet and piano, and I refer to the freeways the California way ("the 8, the 52") without having to think about it. But part of my mind is still reliving our trip. I think I’m a little in shock that it went so well. I was braced for more misadventure in our adventure. Apart from a couple of rough moments when Wonderboy objected (loudly, stridently) to my going out to the car to bring in our bags—because these spaghetti arms can’t handle luggage and babies at the same time—everything went quite smoothly. No getting lost in strange cities, no serious injury, no breakdowns (neither vehicular nor mental), no moments of panic.

Except when those dogs were charging toward us.

It was somewhere in New Mexico, or were we already in Arizona? Already, I’m forgetting the details. I was on the phone with Scott (handsfree, of course, THANK YOU BLUETOOTH) who had an airline ticket agent on his other phone. It was the day the movers unloaded our furniture here, and they finished surprisingly early, and Scott and I were regretting having scheduled a cushion day into our plans. He was booked to fly to Phoenix on the Wednesday, planning to meet us there and bring us into California himself. But I was making great time, and the movers were gone, and both of us were wishing we’d booked his flight for Tuesday instead. Hence the two-phone conference call with the ticket agent, who said she could indeed move his flight up a day and it wouldn’t even cost anything.

"She says she can get me to Phoenix at either two p.m. or five p.m.," he said. "Which one works best for you?"

"Oh, definitely the—" I began, which is when Jane started shrieking. Then Beanie started shrieking. Then Rose started shrieking.

"WHY ARE YOU SHRIEKING?" I shrieked.

"OOOOOOHHHHH MOMMYYYYY GROSS HE’S THROWING UP!"

And then I could hear the retching noises over the shrieking. Poor little Wonderboy. After 2400 miles, his tummy had had enough. So he was vomiting and the girls were screaming and Scott was on the phone wondering if we’d had a car accident, and the ticket agent was on the OTHER phone wondering if we were all crazy people.

"Two o’clock! Arrive at two I gotta go BYE!" I shouted. There was an exit just ahead, so I took it. It turned out to be one of those nothing-there exits, just a frontage road in the middle of lonely fields scattered with rusting cars and old tires. I pulled over to the side of the frontage road and released the girls from the foul-smelling van. Wonderboy was sobbing. Or maybe I was. Hard to tell in all the confusion. I cleaned him up—experience has taught me to keep the minivan well stocked with cleanup supplies—and was bagging his icky icky clothes when I noticed something moving toward us. Dogs. Four of them, no, five. A pack. I think five dogs pretty much qualifies as a pack, especially when they’re a motley assortment of shapes and sizes and they are glaring at you and your small children from not very far away.

Oh, look, that’s a junkyard, said my brain, which has a habit of chiming in with helpful information about five minutes too late. Also, that’s a very low fence. Those dogs could jump that fence in a heartbeat. Look, they are coming this way.

Thanks, Brain. I’d picked up on that already. Eyes beat you to it. And actually Adrenal Gland was way ahead of you both.

Those dogs do not look friendly, said Brain. I couldn’t help but notice that Brain was sounding decidedly panicky. And Heart seemed to have chosen this moment to stop beating.

The girls the girls the girls!!! Are standing by that fence! shrieked Maternal Instinct. Heart executed a double backflip, landing in Throat.

Don’t just stand there you idiots! hollered Adrenaline. Get those kids in the car before those dogs—

Oh they are really close now, observed Eyes.

Myyyyyy baaaabieeeeeees! wailed Maternal Instinct.

Adrenal Gland delivered a firm kick in the pants to Nervous System. The impact jarred Vocal Cords loose from the stranglehold Heart had put on them.

"GIRLS!" I roared. "INTO THE CAR NOW! FAST!"

Bless their beautiful little hearts, they obeyed without questioning me. Or rather, they were asking lots of questions but they were obeying as the words came flying. All three of them piled into the car as I shoved poor Wonderboy back into his seat.

"Mommy, is it those dogs? Are they coming to get us?"

"I don’t know, sweetie. Probably not. I just don’t want to take any chances—"

Oh dear God they’re almost here!!!!! howled Brain.

Yup, really close now, Eyes agreed.

Hey! We hear growling! said Ears.

Brain and Muscles managed to coordinate efforts well enough to get me into my seat where Fingers, oh so eager to help, pushed the buttons that closed the van doors.

Did you see that, guys? We had the most important job. Little old us! Fingers! We saved you all!

Hush, scolded Ears. The children are saying something. Screaming it, actually. Hold on, I’ve almost got it…Ah. "The back door is open." That’s it.

Wha-huh? asked Brain.

The—back—door—is—open.

Of the van, put in Eyes, returning from a trip to the rear-view mirror. You know, the trunk.

We don’t have a button for that, said Fingers.

Oh my Lord, whispered Maternal Instinct.

You know we’re going to have to get out and close that, said Common Sense, making a rare appearance. Everyone else stared at it blankly.

Who are you? asked Brain.

Don’t get distracted, scolded Common Sense. We must close that door. FAST.

AWESOME! shouted Adrenal Gland. WOO WOO WOO!

Um, guys? Small problem, stammered Legs. We seem to be having a malfunction here.

Don’t look at me! protested Nervous System. It’s Heart’s fault!

MOVE IT, MAGGOTS! bellowed Adrenal Gland. GET! THAT! DOOR! CLOSED!

The dogs are at the fence now, chirped Eyes.

My BABIES! sobbed Maternal Instinct. But even as she wailed, she was joining forces with Adrenal Glands to yank Heart up out of Stomach where it had slunk away to hide, the sniveling coward. That seemed to jostle Nervous System out of its stupor, and in a flash Legs leapt out of the car and hurtled to the back of the van. Arms knew what to do. Fingers screeched in triumph at having been saviors once again. By the time Legs returned the rest of the gang to the driver’s seat, Brain was just finally catching up.

I think we should go now, it offered timidly.

You don’t say, said Maternal Instinct in withering tones.

DRIVE DRIVE DRIVE shouted Adrenaline.

Wow those dogs sure bark loudly, said Ears. 

They’ve reached the fence! reported Eyes. That was a close one.

Actually, remarked Common Sense, as Fingers turned the ignition key and steered the van back onto the road, I doubt they would have jumped the fence after all. We probably weren’t ever in any real danger at all.

OH SHUT UP, snarled everyone else.

Humph, sniffed Common Sense. I can see I’m not welcome here! Fine! It stalked off, sulking, and hasn’t been seen since. Which probably explains how I managed to show up at the DMV yesterday without having had the van smog-checked, which is why I was not permitted to register it. Stupid touchy Common Sense. Humph indeed.

So anyway, that’s what happened with the junkyard dogs. Heart and Stomach still go into convulsions whenever Brain hauls the memory out of storage. Fingers are happy, though, because they finally got to tell the story.

(We are the coolest, interject Fingers. We can interject that because WE CONTROL THE KEYBOARD bwah-ha-ha-ha! FINGERS ROCK!)

What it boils down to is that people are really, really nice wherever you go. First my Virginia friends Lisa and Sarah put their own lives on hold for a month to help me pack our house in Scott’s absence. Now here I am in So. Cal. with a whole new crop of friends opening their doors and arms in hospitality. It’s awesome. Way to make a girl feel welcome!

On Saturday, my pal Erica organized a little welcome-to-San-Diego party for our family. And by "little" I mean "very big." Eight or nine families and enough food to sink the Love Boat. See what I mean by AWESOME? Five hours of face-stuffing and good conversation at the home of our new friend Matthew Lickona, author of Swimming With Scapulars—a book Elizabeth has been enthusiastically recommending to me for a year, and which I can’t wait to read. I’ll have to wrestle our copy away from Scott first.

Matthew and his wife generously opened their home to Scott during his first weeks in California. He had just arrived, and they were going on vacation and offered to let him stay at their place while they were away. "Our friend knows your wife from the internet? Come on over! Our house is your house!"

Amazing.

We loved the Lickona gang instantly, along with the rest of the party guests: smart, dynamic, joyful families with loads of sweet little kids. This is a great community. Now if I could just get certain Virginians and New Yorkers to relocate…hey girls, I have POPPIES on my patio right now! In November!

Unpacking is like playing with one of those infuriating little handheld puzzles where you have to slide tiles around to rearrange the segments of a picture. You have a stack of boxes here and a bunch of bookcases there, but you can’t get the bookcases in place because there are boxes in the way, and you can’t move the boxes because there’s nowhere to put them. And then suddenly—you have no idea how it happens—you shift one object in just the right way and everything starts to click into place.

We’re not quite there yet, but we’re close.

Scott broke down all the empties yesterday and moved them out to the trash cans, and that helped a lot. He also, and this was key, found shelf pegs for the last six empty bookcases. So far hardly anything has turned up missing in this move, but of course the AWOL items are things that are vitally important. There were supposed to be THREE bags of shelf pegs, but we could only find two. Your umpteen bookcases do you no good at all if you can’t put in the shelves. Scott bought new pegs at Home Depot, and we’ll probably find that third baggie any minute now, because as soon as you pay money to replace something, it comes out of hiding. I’m pretty sure that’s a Rule of Moving.

The other missing item is a kitchen box. I’m sure it’s here somewhere. I thought I’d opened every single box but clearly I have not, because I have yet to locate the carton with my Tastefully Simple Seasoned Salt in it, and I know I’d have remembered coming across that one. Scrambled eggs just aren’t the same without my TS SS, sob. Fortunately I know where to score some more, and then I’ll have—according to the Rule of Moving—TWO jars, which will be just fine with me.

Anyway, aside from bland eggs and general disorder, we’re settling in quite nicely. We had a great first week in our new digs. The view may be somewhat less inspiring than our beloved Blue Ridge vista (the guy next door, which is to say about ten feet from where I’m sitting right now, is doing a large and outspread renovation project that takes up his entire yard), but it’s INTERESTING, all right. And the weather is gorgeous. Scott heard something on the radio about how winter is coming, so get ready for…more 72 degree days. Heh.

The girls are making friends already—a certain wonderful online pal of mine gave us the warmest possible welcome and an instant sense of community—and our schedules are already filling up, and I can’t believe we just got here ten days ago.

I’m hoping this week will be a return to rhythm—altered, certainly, but back to our old pattern of mornings spent immersed in books and Latin and nature study and all that fun stuff, and a quiet midday rest period during which I can maybe grab a little writing time, and then afternoons spent exploring and playing. I’m posting this here, on Bonny Glen, because it’s time for the blogs to return to their right rhythm too. Lilting House is supposed to focus on (as you know) homeschooling and special needs children, but I blogged the trip on it because I knew I couldn’t guarantee daily updates on TWO blogs, and I did promise to keep up a certain level of frequency in the posting there. But now our general family stuff will bounce back home to Bonny Glen, along with thoughts about the books we read, and, occasionally, thoughts about the books I write. Of course I’m probably the only one who takes any notice of what kind of post I put on which blog. I suppose I’m just thinking with my fingers here, trying to organize my mental writing space the way I’ve been organizing closets.

On the trip I thought of a new blog I want to start and Alice has promised to help me. It’ll have to be a whenever-we-can-squeeze-it-in kind of project, but I think it’ll be fun. It’s an idea that grew out of our cross-country drive, and the nice thing about it is that all of you can chip in. More on that later. I have to finish my closets first!

Somewhere in the middle of Kansas, I called Scott to say we’d be stopping for lunch in either Wakeeney or Ogallah, I wasn’t sure which. He called back and got my voice mail. Left me a message saying Wakeeney has a population of something like 1650 souls. Ogallah? Population 162. By the time I heard his message we’d already driven through Ogallah and hadn’t seen enough evidence of human existence to sustain sixteen people, much less a hundred and sixty.

I stopped in Wakeeney instead and discovered that our lunch options consisted of McDonald’s (again) or the Phillips 66 convenience store. Both of which fine businesses, by the way, are to be found under the same roof. I guess rooves are even more scarce than people in Wakeeney. (Also, and this is important information, do not make the mistake of assuming you can refill your gas tank at the Phillips 66 side of the store. Every single pump is out of order.)

Approximately 300 of Wakeeney’s 1650 citizens were crammed into the McDonald’s side of the building, shooting the breeze over Big Macs. I went to what I thought was the end of the line at the nearest register, but it turned out I’d unwittingly cut in front of an old gentleman who was standing a little to the side, leaving a free space for traffic to the restrooms. I apologized and began to herd my brood to the REAL back of the line, but he waved us back to our former place.

"You go ahead," he said laconically, adjusting the brim of his (and I am NOT making this up) John Deere cap. "I’ve got more time than money."

My heart filled instantly and completely with love for him. I wanted to be his neighbor and invite him over for a Sunday dinner of ham and mashed potatoes with my pan gravy, which is the only dish at which I truly excel. My gravy is to die for. I’d have let him leave his tractor cap on at the table. And I’d give him cobbler for dessert, because I also make a darn good cobbler, if you don’t mind the cherries coming out of a can.

All the rest of the day, as I watched the curves of prairie undulate past our windows, I was thinking of that old man and what he said. I’ve got more time than money. Me too, mister, me too. It brought me back, as everything brings me back, to my understanding of what motherhood is about. What I can give these children is my time. Time. I think about these long hours we’ve spent together in the car, singing Tom Chapin songs and eating sour cherry balls, and I’m so glad we chose this option for getting ourselves across the country, the route that takes more time than money.

The house is empty, and it’s time to say good-bye to this green valley. Away, we’re bound away…

You never realize how many books you have until you start packing.

(This is but the tip of the iceberg.)

While we are thus occupied, Rilla suggests you go check out Karen Edmisten’s latest post, which quotes our favorite passage from one of our favorite books.

Also, it’s Crock Pot Week at Cooking With Whine.

Oh, and don’t miss the new Edge of the Forest!